Category: Christmas

There was something off this morning. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I keep on thinking and relating tonight’s Christmas service to going to the hospital. To an actual birth, of an actual child in today’s modern age. But it wasn’t until my meditation that I really understood what was going on. While visions of cleaning the house, and organizing my closet, and finalizing gifts, rushed through my mind, my heart was simply not with it. These to do lists of everything surrounding me were the “nesting” aspects of bringing in a new child to a home. Yet I quickly, oh so very quickly, realized that it was not my home that needed to be prepared – it was me.

I could feel a literal pull from my heart and immediate tears well in my eyes. My deepest desire was more that the clutter in my heart that was taking up the space for this new Light be removed and I be connected again. I needed to nest myself, not my home, for this coming Child and all that He promises.

So my tearful prayer is that while I have become off-balance with my devotion and spiritual practices, that I too may be restored. My prayer is that I am made ready for the Joy, the Bliss, the Promise of Christmas. My preparation in this 11th hour is that I may practice self love, which might entail sitting in a messy home, just telling myself “I love you”, despite the bloat from Christmas treats, or the list that is hard to forget that streams through my mind. I ask that I may be ready for the coming Life. I ask that I may be restored to be a clear channel of the coming Joy. I ask that my ego be silenced, and Love pour through my body and seep into my mind in an endless stream. I ask today, that I be made ready and whole for the promise of Life that is coming.

“Today I prepare myself for the Divine in all its glory to come and live within me.”

“Maintaining our joy in the midst of extensive preparations can be a challenge for anyone.”

I read this a moment ago in a beautiful cookbook that was a gift to my cousin and the line struck me. How funny that it is hard to find joy sometimes in preparation. Didn’t we choose to do this? Didn’t we have excitement when we started to plan the party, the day, the meal, the gifts, the event? Where did the joy go? How did it escape? And why? But perhaps the question is more about restoration. After stopping and realizing that the joy is no longer there, can we have a plan to invite it back in? Can we plug the hole that let the joy seep out and begin to be filled up again? I think what we can do is remember that it is ok to be joyous. It’s ok to not stress out. It’s ok to focus, do your best, and let go. It’s ok to be imperfect. It’s ok to stop and see the beauty around you and to find laughter in whatever your situation. All will get done. You have more than enough time. And joy, its there to swim in, even during the 11th hour of preparations.

I recently heard Cheryl Richardson advise us all on becoming comfortable with “wanting something when we know or understand it’s not our time to have it”. This is a powerful idea. Can we sit and become comfortable with our own wanting?
I think this is pertinent around this holiday season when we are asked what we “want” in a material sense, and then are asked at New Years what we are resolved to committing to in order to get rid if other wants. It’s a time when we are face to face with the exchange between us all. We can face it with anxiety, with hope, with love or peace, but time an time again we are thrown back into the wanting.
Starting seven years ago every Christmas what I really wanted was a miracle. I wanted the Spirit to fix a wound that hurt us all in my family. I wanted this more than any present imaginable. I asked every year for this miracle and not only around Christmas and yesterday it happened.
Wrapped nicely in a 3 word text, “He did it” the Christmas gift I have asked for with my heart and soul came just a few days early.
It’s hard to describe the fulfillment one has after a seven year wait, but to be perfectly honest the gift came a while ago. The gift came when I became peaceful with the wanting. This year I did not pray and plead for this gift. While my desire for goodwill, health and all good things for my family is still very much with me, I am comfortable with it. God heard my prayers. He got the request from me the very first time my heart ached for it and I asked for it. It was coming, it has come. It’s just on His time. It was this Christmas that was meant to get this gift of fulfillment. The six before have us other important things- patience, faith, a recognition of love, joy in the unseen, detachment of the material, strength in family, release of wanting. I can see so clearly now how it was these other gifts with this year’s answered prayer that constitutes my Divine wealth- that which is unshakable despite circumstances and appearances. It is with these gifts that I have been truly blessed and been given things I didn’t even know I needed much more than my own prayers. This is the Christmas miracle- not that my prayer was answered- they always are- but in the mist of our many year long dialogue I was given Life.

In Advent this is the week dedicated to Joy. A whole week where we consciously, prayerfully and merrily seek to find the bliss of being alive- fully alive. Yet I know pastors everywhere struggled to incorporate such joy with the sorrows of the news as we all did ourselves. How can you live in both […]

I wasn’t feeling well last night and so this morning I slept in (until 7:30). Wow what a difference. My whole demeanor if different. Nonetheless I am feeling better. It’s as if Life has said, “Oh yes, welcome back. This is where you belong”. Within an hour of waking and observing this difference in my body and mind I can see how incredibly harsh I have been on myself. Comparing myself to others. Needing things to be perfect. “Should”ing myself in all areas of life. “Elizabeth”, I can hear this gentle voice say, “why don’t you let go of the reins you’ve got so tight and just ride.” I can see that it’s not that I have to get off of the horse completely or let go of you ability to direct it. But nothing will get done if I am this tight. . . and no one, especially me, will be happy.
My commitment this Monday morning is to embrace this new gentility I have towards myself. There is no reason to put more on me, but instead time to take somethings off. While I can’t change the demands on me from work, I can change the demands on me from me. I can sleep in the extra hour. Take a little but longer walk at lunch. Take a bath. Enjoy a flower. Embrace imperfections and take the time and care to fix anything I mess up.
For the month of December I am relieving myself of standards I have put on myself like waking up in the 5s. Of needing to take the next and new course of study. Instead I am creating space. For my health. For my joy. For the light of Christ to dwell with me and my life this Holy season.